Destruction Takes Three Days
by octocelot
Summary: Three days is all it takes for Gaia to destroy the world as we know it. Here, each event is broken down, the heroes recognized, and the truth told. Fourshot. Rated T for violence.


_To storm or fire the world must fall_

The world ends in three days.

On the first day, Reyna never gets the statue and is shot on the hilltop by a stray arrow. She dies a tenth of a second after realizing that her mother has forsaken her, that all of the gods have forsaken their children. Gaia watches through lidded eyes her grandchildren slaughter each other as a slim few try to break up the fight. And she smiles when the gods, too tormented to fight, begin to tear themselves apart.

The fight is easy.

On the second day, the clouds let down all their water, and each of Gaia's raucous laughs send the soil overturning and rushing in torrents of mud that cover the entire works of humankind.

The fight is easy.

On the third day, she surges to her true power. With a cry that ripples sound waves, she raises her arms and lifts herself from the earth, and in a brilliant flash sends herself shooting up. Her face extends past the atmosphere where she smirks at her husband. The grass is still tickling her toes. Then with one last sigh, she shrinks again. An entire hemisphere is scorched.

 _You should have listened to your mother.  
_  
Meanwhile, the gods in Tartarus recount how their empire had crumbled so fast.

Day 1

I. Sword, organs

It begins with the fall of their hero.

Drool drips from his lips and spit is sprayed from between his teeth as he screams himself hoarse. Put down your weapons! Stop fighting! This is what Gaia wants!

This is what Gaia wants.

She counts how many seconds pass before another demigod is killed. One hundred, sometimes. Four, other times. She guesses it probably averages to one a minute.

Someone is approaching the hero from behind. He uncaps his sword, but he doesn't raise it. His eyes relax into an easy grin. This is no enemy.

At least, that's what he thinks.

He underestimates the power she has over every mind on the battlefield. It wasn't difficult for her to infiltrate the mind of this weakling.

"Here, let me give you a hand."

Time slows for her in this moment, she revels in the expression of surprise and betrayal as the dark-haired boy is thrust onto a sword, stomach first. He grunts and slumps forward, grabbing onto the sword as if it's his lifeline. His eyes raise to meet those of his murderer. The blade pokes through his back and glitters in the sunlight, but Gaia is not blinded by this. Rather, she is squinting, because the demigod is about to utter his last words, and she desperately wants to know them.

 _You_ , his lips form a soft _o._

His jaw falls slack, and she watches gleefully as his legs crumble and he falls to the ground gasping.

With a push from a leg placed on his shoulder, and a strong pull, the sword is jerked out from between his ribs. His guts spill onto the fresh grass, and he slumps forward.

In his last moments, perhaps it is sweat and blood falling to the ground. Perhaps they are tears.

II.

"We need to stick together."

Of course.

The ranks have fallen to shambles around them.

The blonde Roman has no objection to this. But when his girlfriend tries to sing her to sleep, Gaia has a few objections.

Her eyes are drooping. She wants to sleep. Why is she awake, again? She feels the blood feeding her roots. She allows to rush through her the tremors the giants send through the ground. She focuses on the aliveness at her fingertips.

"No!" she roars.

This is why.

She curls thick brown roots around the girl's ankles and whips her across the field. She makes it 100 meters before she meets a tree and is killed on impact.

Electricity flies erratically from the Roman's fingertips. It seems he's lost control. Is he stupid enough to try to take her on himself?

When Gaia confronts him in the Field of Punishment (the rules have been shifted, a bit, and she loves her new privilege of judging new arrivals), she realizes that he isn't stupid. He was just merely made stupid by his blind hatred and desire for revenge.

"If you had just surrendered, none of this would be happening right now," she says. "If you hadn't loved her, this wouldn't be happening. If you had joined me, none of this would be happening.

"I know," he says for the thousandth time.

"Don't be pertinent." Thousand and one.

* * *

 **A/N:** Enough story time for now.

This will be a four shot, each chapter chronicling one of the days Gaia destroyed the world.

This was a prologue, so the next chapter will discuss the first day of destruction a bit more.


End file.
